Don't buy furs: that's No. 1. You can start with that. Then spay

Loretta Swit, a voice both fierce and tender, once declared: “Don’t buy furs: that’s No. 1. You can start with that. Then spay and neuter your pets. We destroy millions of them a year. Go to an animal shelter for a cat or dog. And read a book about how to care properly for your particular pet.” These words, though spoken in modern times, carry the gravity of commandments, as though carved upon stone by the hand of conscience itself. They call us not only to compassion, but to responsibility, to the noble guardianship of the innocent creatures entrusted to us by creation.

The first teaching, “Don’t buy furs,” is a rebuke to vanity. For centuries, kings and nobles adorned themselves in pelts, boasting of wealth and conquest. Yet what is such display but a mantle of cruelty? In ancient tales, the heroes were not those who clothed themselves in the skins of the powerless, but those who defended the weak, who wore honor as their garment. Swit reminds us that true greatness lies not in parading death as fashion, but in honoring life by rejecting needless harm.

Her second charge, to spay and neuter, carries a sorrowful truth. Humanity, careless in its abundance, has brought forth multitudes of cats and dogs, only to abandon them to suffering. Temples of life—the shelters—overflow with creatures yearning for home, while millions more are destroyed each year. This is not fate, but the consequence of negligence. The ancients spoke of hubris, the arrogance of mortals who act without thought for the balance of the world. To neglect spaying and neutering is such hubris, for it brings needless life into a world unprepared to sustain it.

History offers us warnings. In medieval Europe, when cats were hunted and killed out of superstition, the balance of nature faltered, and plague-bearing rats multiplied unchecked. The destruction of one life reverberates across creation. So too with our treatment of domestic animals: to fail in responsible stewardship is to unleash waves of suffering, not only upon them, but upon ourselves, for we erode our own humanity when we betray the bond of care.

Swit’s words also guide us to the animal shelter, the place of second chances. In every age, there have been sanctuaries where the outcast found refuge: temples where slaves could claim freedom, cities of asylum where the hunted could breathe in safety. Shelters are such places for animals, humble yet holy, where the unwanted wait with patient eyes for a hand of kindness. To choose adoption is to join the ranks of those who mend what is broken, who restore dignity where it has been denied.

And finally, she commands us to read a book—to learn. For love without knowledge is a fragile flame. The ancients honored wisdom: farmers studied the cycles of the moon before sowing seed; healers studied herbs before tending wounds. So too must we study before we take into our homes the life of another being. Each creature has needs, temperaments, vulnerabilities. To learn them is not a burden, but an act of reverence.

The lesson, then, is as clear as the rising sun: to care for animals is not an idle pastime, but a sacred duty. Cast aside vanity that delights in furs, prevent suffering through spaying and neutering, seek the forgotten ones in the shelters, and arm yourself with knowledge through the book. These are not suggestions, but steps along the path of compassion, each a stone upon the road to true stewardship.

Practical action stands before us. Refuse to buy that which cost an innocent its life. Take your animals to the vet and ensure their numbers do not swell into tragedy. Enter the shelter not as a curious visitor, but as a savior ready to give home and hearth. And in quiet hours, read, study, and learn how best to guard the life that depends upon you. In doing so, you align yourself with the eternal wisdom of compassion, and your days become not merely lived, but consecrated by love.